Unattended Retail Operations Management

Technical Certificate · 14 credit hours · 1 semesters · Division of Building, Structures and Site Services

The certificate was renamed because the underlying business is not vending. It is the operation of retail premises and equipment that take money without an employee present. The economics, the siting analysis, the cash and cashless settlement, the shrinkage exposure, and the service route are common to all of it; the equipment is not.

Core, 8 credit hours, taken by all students. Site qualification and placement economics; cashless and mobile payment settlement and chargeback handling; route design and service interval costing; shrinkage measurement and reconciliation; vandalism, theft, and premises liability; location contracts and commission structures; and utility load and metering.

Track, 6 credit hours. One of the following. A second track may be added later at the per-credit rate.

Track A — Snack and Beverage. Planogram and par level design, product mix by location type, spoilage and rotation, cold vend refrigeration compliance, health department requirements for unattended food, micro-market kiosk and camera systems, and the honor-system loss rates that determine whether a micro-market is viable at a given headcount.

Track B — Laundry. Self-service laundry operations. Card and coin system conversion, water and sewer cost modeling and the sewer credit for evaporation, gas and electric load, dryer venting and lint fire prevention, machine cycle programming and pricing by capacity, wash-dry-fold as an attended add-on, ADA requirements for a public accommodation, and attendant staffing models including the hours at which an unattended laundry becomes a liability rather than a savings.

Track C — Vehicle Wash. Self-serve bay and in-bay automatic operations. Bay equipment and wand systems, brush and touchless system trade-offs, water reclaim and discharge permitting, chemistry selection and titration, freeze protection and winter operation in this climate, vacuum and air stations, and the seasonal revenue curve, which in this region concentrates in February and March.

Track D — Amusement and Other. Everything else that takes coins. Amusement and crane machines and the Ohio requirements distinguishing amusement from gambling; jukeboxes and music licensing; ATM placement, loading, and surcharge economics; air and vacuum machines; bulk ice houses; propane exchange cages; coin-operated kiddie rides; and media rental kiosks.

Students should be aware that this track covers a wide range of equipment at limited depth. It exists because the regional operators who employ graduates run mixed routes and do not organize their businesses by equipment category.

Capstone: a siting and service feasibility analysis for a proposed machine placement. Since 2019 the assignment has used the College's Aviation and Heavy Equipment Annex as its subject. Student analyses have recommended placement in eleven of the last twelve terms. The analyses are retained as coursework and are not submitted to the Office of Facilities.

Facilities and instruction

Instruction is delivered in the facilities of the Division of Building, Structures and Site Services. Additional photographs are collected at Campus photographs.